Ratings - Ease: 2/5, Taste: 4.5/5, Price: $
Scale: Ease out of 5, with 5 being easy and 1 difficult. Taste out of 5, 5 being delicious and 1 being disgusting. Price out of 5 dollar ($) signs, $ being cheap and $$$ being expensive.
Link to the video recipe:
Link to the written recipe:
This was one of the most intimidating dishes I've ever made, mainly because of my fear of spreading raw chicken juices and bacteria all over my house and infecting my whole family. At the time of writing, I feel okay, so hopefully things went well in that department. My family isn't the biggest group of turkey lovers out there, so we went for chicken this Thanksgiving.
I think Babish's way of dry brining and spatchcocking the chicken, then massaging the meat with a butter mixture might be the best, most foolproof way of cooking a chicken. There's insurance of tender meat and moist skin through the brine, and there's a boost in juiciness through the even cooking offered by spatchcocking (removing the spine and laying the bird flat), as well as by rubbing the meat with butter.
My bird came out far better than I expected in terms of doneness. The breast, notorious for drying out, was juicy and tender, so it goes without saying that the dark meat came out perfectly as well. If you own a meat thermometer, this should be a breeze. I didn't have one, however, so I had to guess when my chicken was done. I followed Babish's guidelines of 450º F for 45 minutes, and I was rewarded with a great chicken. The skin wasn't as crispy as you would expect for a dry-brined chicken, but that was definitely my fault. I could only find huge sea salt crystals at the store, which may have been too big to properly penetrate the skin and create the dry, crispy exterior we all love.
All in all, this was a great chicken. If you want to cook a whole bird, this is the way to go.
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